The following is part of an interview I did for
themes.org
back in June 1998. One of the questions they asked me was,
``what do you think about Linux?''

Today, I use Linux as my primary OS (on an x86 PC, and on a
Thinkpad), and I also use Irix (on an SGI O2.) Linux has improved a
great deal since I wrote this, specifically with respect to its ease of
installation.

I still use an SGI O2 as my main desktop machine, because it has
the best X server ever written: the integration between SGI's X server
and SGI's 3D hardware is far better than anything you can
accomplish on Linux for any amount of money. Since one of my favorite
programming projects is
XScreenSaver, having a decent X server
is invaluable. I could not do as good a job debugging that program
if I didn't have a machine that can let me try out different depths
and X visuals without having to restart the server each time.
And of course, having blazingly fast 3D support is really nice too.
Mostly I use the O2 as an X terminal, however, running my apps on
Linux and displaying remotely.

Anyway, the following is what I had to say about Linux back in
1998. Bits and pieces of this article have been quoted out of context
in lots of places, so for the record, here it is in its entirety.

What are your views on Linux?

I think Linux is a great thing, because Linux is an alternative to
Windows, and because, of all the operating systems that are at all
relevant today, Unix is the best of a bad lot.

(Yes, that's right, though I've been living in Unix for more than a
decade, I think Unix sucks. Read the
``Unix
Hater's Handbook'' if you want to know why. But I'd rather run
Unix than Windows or MacOS any day, because Unix sucks less. That
doesn't mean it doesn't suck.)

I used Linux exclusively for most of 1995 and 1996, or thereabouts;
back then, I found it to be a total nightmare. It took me three weeks
to get X to drive my monitor at better than 640x400, even though
Windows did 1280x1024x16 without flinching. I spent weeks fighting IRQ
conflicts, trying to get PPP working, trying to find a three-button
mouse that worked, and all manner of gross indecencies which do not
bear mentioning in polite company.

I understand that here in this modern world, things are much
better; but at the time, it was the most pathetic computing environment
I had ever had the misfortune of being shanghaied into trying to
sysadmin.

(And the fact that some of the problems I had were hardware
problems did little to make me feel better; regardless, they were
problems that were easier to solve under Windows, and problems that I
would not have had at all had I been using a hardware/software combo
from a ``real'' Unix vendor. I've heard all the apologies and excuses,
I know the litany well.)

See, unlike most hackers, I get little joy out of figuring out how
to install the latest toy. I don't get much sense of reward from
having discovered how to get the Foo card to coexist with the
Bar card. As far as I'm concerned, that crap is a solved
problem, and not worth revisiting. That's like banging rocks together
and being proud that you've re-derived fire from first principles.
It's boring.

So finally I talked my boss into getting me an SGI Indy (which I've
since replaced with an SGI O2) and life became joyous again. Because
SGI actually knows something about building user interfaces, and about
making it possible to administer a machine without being a member of
the technological priesthood. For but one example, I was able to
install and format a new disk on this machine through GUIs, without
once having to run ``man'' and try to remember some random arcane command
that I last used in 1986.

This is the part where I start getting hate mail from people, and
cheerleading messages telling me to take a look at it again, because
it's so much better now. I understand. I'll take your word for it. And
when the time comes to replace the O2 I have today, maybe my next
machine will run Linux. But as we all know, Linux is only free if your
time has no value, and I find that my time is better spent doing things
other than the endless moving-target-upgrade dance.

Of course, all of the software I write runs on Linux; that's
the beauty of standards, and of cross-platform code. I don't have
to run your OS, and you don't have to run mine, and we can use the same
applications anyway!

I think Linux is a great thing, in the big picture. It's a great
hacker's tool, and it has a lot of potential to become something
more. I hope that some day it will have evolved to the point where my
mom can take home a Linux box, turn it on, and get on with her life
without having to become a Unix sysadmin first, and without having to
give up on all the ease of use she's come to expect from allegedly less
powerful operating systems.

Because, you see, what I want to do is to commoditize the OS. I
want to have access to all the applications that I need to do the
things that I need to do, regardless. Why should someone have to
retrain themselves to use a new application that does the same basic
thing as the old application, just because something as trivial as the
operating system changed out from under them?

Operating systems matter deeply to programmers, but in the big
picture, they're old news. It's all about the network, and the
applications that let you get benefit from the network. Using a
computer isn't an end in itself, it's merely a means to an end. The
focus must always be on the task that the person wants to
accomplish, to communicate, to learn, to create, to be entertained.
Insofar as the computer itself makes itself known in this process, the
computer is an impediment. Do What I Mean! Be humanistic, don't get
bogged down in the details.